Meg Cabot - Reunion

Instead, all I could concentrate on was how sheer the drop was. Hundreds of feet, straight down, into waves churning against giant boulders knocked down from the cliffsides during various earthquakes. Not exactly the kind of cliff you'd catch anyone - not even Elvis back in his Acapulco prime - diving off.

Strangely, at the bottom of the place where Josh's car had gone off of the road was a small, sandy beach. Not the kind you'd go to sunbathe, but a nice picnic area, if you were willing to risk your neck climbing down to get there.

Michael must have noticed my gaze, since he said, "Yeah, that's where they landed. Not in the water. Well, at least, not right away. Then high tide came in, and - "

I shuddered and looked away.

"Is there some way," I wondered aloud, "to get down there?"

"Sure," he said, and pointed at an open section of the guardrail. "Over there. It's a trail. Hikers are the only ones who use it, mostly. But sometimes tourists try it. The beach down there is amazing. You never saw such huge waves. Only it's too dangerous to surf. Too many riptides."

I looked at him curiously in the purpling twilight. "You've been down there?" I asked. The surprise in my voice must have been evident.

"Suze," he said with a smile. "I've lived here all my life. There aren't a whole lot of beaches I haven't been to."

I nodded, and pulled at a strand of hair that had found its way into my mouth thanks to the wind. "So, what," I asked him, "happened, exactly, that night?"

He squinted at the road. It was dark enough now that the cars traveling on it had switched on their lights. Occasionally, the glow of one swept his face as he spoke. Again, it was difficult to see his eyes behind the reflection of the light against the lenses of his glasses.

"I was coming home," he said, "from a workshop at Esalen - "

"Esalen?"

"Yeah. The Esalen Institute. You've never heard of it?" He shook his head. "My God, I thought it was known worldwide." My expression must have been pretty blank, since he said, "Well, anyway, I was at a lecture there. 'Colonization of Other Worlds, and What It Means for Exterrestrials Here on Earth.' "

I tried not to burst out laughing. I was, after all, a girl who could see and speak to ghosts. Who was I to say there wasn't life on other planets?

"Anyway, I was driving home - it was pretty late, I guess - and they came barreling around that corner, didn't honk, nothing."

I nodded. "So what did you do?"

"Well, I swerved to avoid them, of course, and ended up going into that cliff there. You can't see it because it's dark out now, but my front bumper took out a big chunk of the side of the hill. And they … well, they swerved the other way, and it was foggy, and the road might have been a little slick, and they were going really fast, and …"

He finished, tonelessly, with another shrug. "And they went over."

I shuddered again. I couldn't help it. I had met these kids, remember. They hadn't exactly been at their best - in fact, they'd been trying to kill me - but still, I couldn't help feeling sorry for them. It was a long, long way down.

"So what did you do?" I asked.

"Me?" He seemed strangely surprised by the question. "Well, I hit my head, you know, so I blacked out. I didn't come around until someone pulled over and checked on me. That's when I asked what happened to the other car. And they said 'What other car?' And I thought they'd, you know, driven away, and I have to admit, I was pretty hacked. I mean, that they hadn't bothered to call an ambulance for me, or anything. But then we saw the guard-rail...."

I was getting really cold now. The sun was completely gone, although the western sky was still streaked violet and red. I shivered and said, "Let's get in the car."

And so we did.

We sat there staring at the horizon as it turned a deeper and deeper shade of blue. The headlights from the cars that went by occasionally lit up the interior of the minivan. Inside the car it was much quieter, without the wind and the sound of the waves below us. Another wave of extreme tiredness passed over me. I could see by the glow of the clock in the dashboard that soon it would be dinnertime. My stepfather Andy had a very strict rule about dinner. You showed up. Period.

"Look," I said, breaking the stillness. "It sounds horrible, what happened. But it wasn't your fault."

He looked at me. In the green glow from the instruments in the dash, I could see that his smile was rueful. "Wasn't it?" he asked.

"No," I said sternly. "It was an accident, plain and simple. The problem is … well, not everyone sees it that way."

The smile disappeared. "Who doesn't see it that way?" he demanded. "The cops? I gave them my statement. They seemed satisfied. They took a blood sample. I tested completely negative for alcohol, for all drugs. They can't possibly - "

"Not," I said quickly, "the cops." How, I wondered, was I going to put this? I mean, the guy was obviously one of those UFO geeks, so you'd think he wouldn't have a problem with ghosts, but you never knew.

"The thing is," I began, carefully, "I've kind of noticed that since the accident this weekend, you've been a bit … danger prone."

"Yeah," Michael said. All of a sudden, his hand was on mine again. "If it wasn't for you, I might even be dead. That's twice now you've saved my life."

"Ha ha," I said nervously, pulling my hand away, and pretending I had another hair in my mouth so I needed to use that particular hand, you know, to brush it away. "Um, but seriously, haven't you kind of, I mean, wondered what was going on? Like why all of a sudden so many … things were happening to you?"

He smiled at me again. His teeth, in the glow of the speedometer, looked green. "It must be fate," he said.

"Okay," I said. Why me? "Not those kind of things. I mean bad kind of things. Like at the mall. And at the beach just now...."

"Oh," he said. Then he shrugged those incredibly strong shoulders. "No."

"Okay," I said yet again. "But if you were to think about it, don't you think one sort of logical explanation might be … angry spirits?"

His smile faded a little. "What do you mean?"

I heaved a sigh. "Look, that wasn't a jellyfish back there, and you know it. You were being pulled under, Michael. By something."

He nodded. "I know. I haven't quite … I'm used to undertows, of course, but that was - "

"It wasn't an undertow. And it wasn't jellyfish. And I just … well, I think you should be careful."

"What are you saying?" Michael asked. He peered at me curiously. "It almost sounds like you're suggesting that I've been the victim of some kind of … demonic force." He laughed. In the quiet of the car, his laugh was loud. "Brought on by the deaths of those kids who almost ran me off of the road? Is that it?"

I looked out my window. I couldn't see anything except the huge purple shadows of the steep cliffs around us, but I kept looking anyway. "Yes," I said. "That's exactly it."

"Suze." Michael reached for my hand again, and this time, he squeezed it. "Are you trying to tell me that you believe in ghosts?"

I looked at him. I looked him straight in the eye. And I said, "Yes, Michael. Yes, I am."

He laughed again. "Oh, come on," he said. "Do you honestly think that Josh Saunders and his friends are capable of communicating from beyond the grave?"

Something in the way he said Josh's name caused me to … I don't know. But I didn't like it. I didn't like it at all.

"I mean - " Michael let go of my hand, then leaned forward and switched on the ignition. "Face facts. The guy was a dumb jock. The most impressive thing he ever did was plunge off of a cliff with another dumb jock, and their equally low-wattage girlfriends. It's not necessarily such a bad thing they're gone, you know? They were just taking up space."